As Close as Hands and Feet
by Elfish Etyma
Summary: ShuichiMaiko brothersister relationship. 50gravi challenges. Ever wondered what life was like for Shuichi before Bad Luck and Eiri Yuki? These pieces of the action tell all.
1. Punk Rocker

**Author's Notes:** These are mini-stories done for the 50gravi challenge over at LiveJournal. The pairing is Shuichi/Maiko but I doubt it'll go anything past a brother and sister relationship... I _think_. If it does, you shall be warned!  
**Title:** Punk Rocker.  
**Author:** Elfish Etyma.  
**Theme:** Punk #37.  
**Rating:** G. (K... K?)  
**Warnings:** Silly little pink-haired freaks and patient younger siblings.  
**Disclaimer:** Well gee-golly-gosh, I don't think I own anything to do with Gravitation. Do I?  
**Summary:** Shuichi learns why hairdressers exist.

* * *

Maiko was leant against the wall, before she rapped her hand on the door for what had to have been the fifth time in less than a minute. "Shuichi?" she called, and sighed when there was no reply. "Come on, Shuichi, it can't be that bad." She watched her sock clad feet as they twitched and she shifted them slightly as pins and needles began to form. 

"Oh but it is!" came the whine from her brother. "It's gone horribly wrong."

"What, are you bald now?" she questioned, and she sat up a little, interested now that she wasn't being ignored any longer.

"No! I am **not** bald, Maiko!"

"Then it can't have gone 'horribly wrong', now could it?" she resorted easily, and somewhat smugly Shuichi secretly thought. "Just open the door and show me."

"Do you promise not to laugh?" he questioned, in a sullen manner, from behind the still closed bathroom door.

"I promise, Shuichi." There was an ominous click as the bathroom door was unlocked, and Maiko stood up as her brother slowly peered out a little. "Come on, Shuichi! Take the damn towel off your head."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Shuichi muttered in the general direction of the floor even as nimble fingers screwed themselves up in the towel and yanked it off. He closed his eyes tightly.

"Oh wow. Mum's going to _kill_ you."

The once black-haired male twirled a lock of wet hair, nervously, between his fingers. "It wasn't meant to go pink."

"Shuichi," Maiko said, dead-panned, "that's not just _pink_. That's bright, shocking, slap-in-the-face _pink_."

The now pink-haired teen flushed and started to nibble on his bottom lip. "Well, what do you think of it?"

For a moment, there was silence in the Shindou household, something that hardly ever happened, before Maiko grinned brightly and put a hand on her hip. "You look like a punk."

"Does that mean I'm going to scare old people and get tutted at?"

"Don't forget the disapproving looks, nii-chan!" Maiko cut in happily.

Shuichi smiled, seemingly put at ease with his sister's easy going attitude, and ruffled his still damp hair. "I… _think_ it suits me."

"You could always re-dye it if you don't like it."

He thought about how much dye he'd subjected his hair to that day and thought against it; it would, no doubt, fall out if he tortured it anymore. "No, I think I'll keep it. What better way to be noticed by potential producers, eh? They'll see me from miles away!" Here, he laughed almost manically before he lifted his sister into the air. "I'll become a star in no time with hair like this!"

A delighted laugh left Maiko's lips as she was lifted. "Nittle Grasper watch out! Shindou Shuichi is coming through!"

"Bigger, better and **brighter** than ever!" Shuichi laughed as he put Maiko back onto the ground. "I've got to tell Hiro! See you later, Maiko!" He kissed her on her cheek before he ran off down the hall; he slid over to his shoes, jammed his feet into them and was out of the door and half-way down the street before Maiko had even had time to get her breath back.

She sighed and shook her head at her older brother's antics, and smiled indulgently as she calmly walked to her own bedroom. "Mum is _so_ going to kill him," she cackled to herself.


	2. Some Extra Fat

**Author's Notes:** These are mini-stories done for the 50gravi challenge over at LiveJournal. The pairing is Shuichi/Maiko but I doubt it'll go anything past a brother and sister relationship... I _think_. If it does, you shall be warned!  
**Title:** Some Extra Fat.  
**Author:** Elfish Etyma.  
**Theme:** Cringe #7.  
**Rating:** G. (K... K?)  
**Warnings:** Silly little pink-haired freaks and patient younger siblings.  
**Disclaimer:** Well gee-golly-gosh, I don't think I own anything to do with Gravitation. Do I?  
**Summary:** A Mother's Wrath and a Father's Apathy are greatly underrated.  
**Notes:** Thank you for the lovely reviews!

* * *

Shuichi toed the carpet with his bare feet as his very irritated Mother stood in front of him, hands on her hips, as her left foot tapped rapidly. _'Uh oh,' _thought Shuichi, as he looked back down after he'd braved a glance up. _'She's well and truly pissed off.'_ It was the foot, really, that gave it away; not the fact that her face was flushed red from anger, or the fact that she'd shouted herself hoarse when she'd first caught sight of Shuichi's pink hair.

"Your hair!" his Mum moaned for the fifth time. "Your beautiful, normal, black hair! What have you done to it!"

"I, er, dyed it?"

"Well I can see that!" she now yelled, as melodramatic as always – Hiro had always said he'd got his over-excitable nature off his Mum. "But _why_?" Shuichi didn't answer, but he could see his sister stood in the doorway as she silently laughed at him. He frowned slightly. "Don't you be pulling faces at me! Look what you've done to yourself! You look like some common-place ruffian."

"Maiko said I looked like a punk."

His Mum's eyes flashed ever-so-slightly. "Oh so your sister knew about this, did she now? I'll be having words with her for not telling me before you got back in!" Shuichi shot his sister a smug smile as she angrily glared back at him. "I suppose you knew about this, too, did you?" His Mum now rounded up on his Dad, and the man didn't bother to look up from his newspaper as he spoke for the first time during the whole rant.

"Of course I didn't, darling."

"Don't you 'darling' me! Have you even _seen_ the state of your son?"

The man sighed slightly as he lowered his newspaper and looked his sheepish-looking son up and down. He didn't seem in the least bit bothered. "Does he still have two eyes?"

"What—yes, of course he does!"

"Eight fingers and two thumbs?"

"…Yes."

"All his limbs in tact?"

"Of course."

"He's not got a girl pregnant, has he?"

"DAD!" Shuichi finally spoke up, his cheeks were flushed red as he looked at his Father, who looked right back at him evenly; still in wait for his answer. "Of course I haven't!" he spluttered, still red in the cheeks.

"Then that's okay." And with that, Shuichi's Dad snapped his paper back open and began to read it once more.

"What, that's it!" his Mum spluttered and Shuichi cringed. "You've got nothing to say about his hair?"

"Has it fallen out?"

"Oh for crying out loud, no!"

"Then I have nothing to say."

"You really are impossible! You," her attention turned back onto Shuichi. "To your room, now. I've got your Father to deal with."

Shuichi pulled his face in sympathy before he left the room as quick as humanly possible. He met his sister on the stairs. "You're a sadistic little git, did you know that?" she sulked. "What kind of big brother doesn't protect their little, defenceless, sister from their Mother's Wrath?"

"A big brother that was getting laughed at, you cow."

"Moooo," replied Maiko, as they both walked up the stairs, their Mother's voice already in full-swing as she, without a doubt, ranted at their Dad for his blasé attitude. "May I be a carnivorous cow?"

"Yeah, but you've got no teeth, so you can't chew the meat and you'll die of starvation."

"Nii-chan!" Maiko whined and thumped her brother on his arm, and he winced in reply. "That's not very nice! Let me eat you!"

"I sharn't," was Shuichi's sullen reply. "If it was left up to you, you would have let _Mum_ eat me." Here, he turned the water-works on and pouted at the brunette. "So you don't deserve to eat me."

"Humph, you're all bone anyway," Maiko sniffed before she walked off.

Shuichi, however, called after her. "Just because you're beginning to harbour some fat, _Ma-i-ko_," he said, his voice sing-song. She turned around furiously at the suggestion and Shuichi cupped his hands around his flat chest and began to make kiss sounds; large eyes widened to look innocent. "Ooo, look at me! I'm all grown up!"

The girl flushed heavily and huffed, folded her arms around her chest, turned on her heel and stormed off to her bedroom. She closed the door with a slam and leaned against the wood, before she looked down at her breasts. "I knew putting tissue paper in my bra would be too noticeable," she moaned to herself silently, cheeks reddened, her brother's voice still audible through the door as he continued to joyfully mock her. "…Damn brothers."


End file.
